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Suffice to say, the "wow moment" has made an emphatic return to Kentucky basketball.

Yet if UK's 102-92 win Thursday night over the scrappy visitors from Texas showed that the thrill is back in Rupp, it also showed something else just as dramatically.

Three games in, Kentucky's kiddie corps is Yao Ming-long on style but Calvin Borel-short on substance.

"It was exciting to watch them going up and down the court," Kentucky Coach John Calipari said of his team. Pause.

Said Cal: "This may be, at this point, the worst defensive team that I have had."

There was ample Kentucky style.

All five UK starters scored at least 15 points. Three had 20 or more. Freshman big man DeMarcus Cousins had a monster game, 27 points and 18 rebounds in only 27 minutes.

Freshman guard John Wall (21 points, six assists) had an over-the-head backwards dunk that ended with his tongue wagging in a Jordan-esque manner.

Yet Wall's sweetest play came in the first half when he drove through four Sam Houston defenders, got to the rim, only to kick the ball out to an open Darius Miller (15 points) in the corner for a trey that Miller cashed.

Bledsoe (19 points, six assists) — who came out of high school reputed to be an erratic jump shooter — drained five three-pointers of his own.

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